Sophomore sensations: Pair of Palm Desert High wrestlers win state titles

It made sense that an unprecedented year for the Palm Desert High School wrestling team would end in unprecedented fashion.

Not one but two Aztec wrestlers took home state championships on Saturday at the finals in Bakersfield, an impressive performance for a school that had only seen one wrestler ever win a state title before this year.

And here's the scary part, both of them are sophomores.

Daniel Herrera at 285 pounds had been the No. 1 wrestler at his weight class all year, and he carried that through on Saturday. In his championship match against Sam Hinojosa of Stagg High School, Herrera made it look easy, pinning Hinojosa in 1:28.

Herrera had something to prove to his competitors due to being the top-ranked wrestler in the weight class without having any postseason wrestling experience.

"It feels amazing to know I've finally achieved my dream my family and I have been working for since I was five," Herrera said. "It's just many emotions hitting you at once when it sinks in."

Brock Mantanona, who only this week became the No. 1 wrestler in his 126-pound weight class after an impressive performance at last week's Masters meet, validated it by going all the way for the title. He pinned Zeth Romney of Chaminade College Prep, the same guy he beat for the Masters title last week, in 4:34 while holding a narrow 4-3 lead.

"I was just exhilarated," Mantanona said. "It was something I have dreamed of since I was eight years old so it was surreal."

Both Herrera and Mantanona were deprived of a chance at State meet success as freshmen because the wrestling postseason was wiped away by COVID-19.

More: Palm Desert wrestlers make history with valley record six Masters meet champions

They become the first desert wrestlers to win a state title since Anthony Mantanona, Brock's older brother, accomplished the feat in 2017.

Speaking of the Mantanonas, a third Aztec state title slipped away on Saturday as Beau Mantanona, who had not lost all year and also was the No. 1-ranked wrestler at 136 pounds, was defeated in overtime in a highly controversial championship match.

A fourth Aztec, Sonny Kling, also made the championship match, but fell short at 195 pounds. Palm Desert's Erik McCown finished fifth at 170.

Palm Desert finished fourth in the state as a team, accomplishing one of their primary goals of placing in the top five. None of the four Aztec finalists are seniors, so they will be loaded again next year.

The Beau Mantanona controversy

So let's break down the wild championship match at 138 pounds between Beau Mantanona and Buchanan's Michael Gioffre.

The match went into overtime tied at 2-2 and Gioffre got one point early in the overtime period to go up 3-2. With 15 seconds left, Beau made his move to get a one-point escape to tie the match, but he did even better earning a two-point reversal which was signaled by the head referee and that's the way it stayed when the clock ran out and Mantanona celebrated his 4-3 win.

However, the assistant referee questioned whether Beau should've been credited with those two points. After a discussion, it was decided that Mantanona should not have been given the two-point reversal.

Which had several devastating layers to it. That meant Gioffre won 3-2. Also, Beau was deprived of the 15 seconds he would've had to still work for the escape, had he not thought he was already ahead. And, it could be argued that the refs could've awarded Beau one point, at least, for an escape that would've tied the match. Instead, despite the protestations of the Aztec coaches, nothing was changed and the match was over, a frustrating 3-2 loss for Beau.

For this exact situation, there is a push for there to be some sort of protocol for what they call "dead time." In other words, if a score is changed like that, the time from when the move happened is dead, and the match can be restarted at that point, allowing both wrestlers to finish the time knowing where they stand. However, no such protocol exists at this point.

Cathedral City history-makers

Isaiah Morales of Cathedral City fell just short of the finals. The Lions' senior completed a fantastic season, finishing fourth at 182 pounds.

Cathedral City's Hector Haro had one of the more impressive efforts, based on his ranking entering the tournament. Haro, ranked 10th in the state at 220 pounds, ended up placing by finishing in sixth place overall. His run included some valley-on-valley crime as he defeated Palm Desert's Caleb VanBuskirk, the fourth-ranked wrestler in the weight class, along the way.

They are the first-ever Lions to place (finish in the top eight) at the state meet.

Girl power

Palm Desert's Tegan Nguyen made history Saturday becoming the first Palm Desert girls' wrestler ever to place at the state meet, and she showed a lot of courage in doing so.

Nguyen, finished eighth at 131 pounds, and her weekend started when she had to medically forfeit her first match when she twisted her knee midway through the match. She regrouped and went on a run, winning four straight matches to claim a spot on the podium. At that point, she made the difficult decision to medically forfeit the remainder of the matches, but her history-making eighth-place spot was secure.

Shad Powers covers high school sports for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: High school wrestling: A pair of Palm Desert sophomores earn rare state title